


To my younger self

by kaffefilter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Personal Growth, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaffefilter/pseuds/kaffefilter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What would you have said?"</p><p>"What?" Dean is just on the verge of tears. He always is during these sessions. </p><p>"What would you have said if you could sit yourself down at the age where you felt it all go wrong?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	To my younger self

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on personal experience. After being given the same question, I thought someone should care enough to ask Dean the same one.  
> Because he deserves it.
> 
> This is just an aftermath, caretaking drabble. I hope you enjoy.

"What would you have said?"

 

"What?" Dean is just on the verge of tears. He always is during these sessions. Talking about himself is hard when his head had always told him repeatedly to just shut up and deal with it like a man every time he tried to reach in and unscramble the mess. He has to be a man about it. Like he always has been. _Bottle things up, you're being ridiculous_.

But Anne is calm, forward and blunt as well or this wouldn't work so well, but calm. It derails his usual dismissive train of thought completely and for once he is forced to be honest with himself.

 

"What would you have said if you could sit yourself down at the age where you felt it all go wrong?"

 

Dean tries to think back, tries to find that person he had been before he learned monsters are real and he couldn't be a child anymore, because children got hurt. Children couldn't protect their family. What had he been? 6? 7?

Or had it started when John handed over Sammy into his arms when they both smelled like lethal smoke and broken dreams?

God, it all happened over 30 years ago and here he is, crying and sobbing over what he lost when he barely big enough to hold his squirming brother in his arms without dropping him. He knows what he would have wanted to hear. He has said it so many times to other kids throughout their years on the job, showed them that life was going to be alright. That none of what had happened to them could ever hurt or harm them again.

But imagining it being himself somehow makes the words feel fake and egoistic. No one had given him what he needed back then, and that was probably for a damn good reason. People had better things to do, people to save and threats to eliminate. Dean couldn't crave then that would sort his issues out and coddle him through the pain they were all going through.

Sammy came first, dad second and then the job. Dean's achy heart was so damn low on the list it was practically pointless to even put it on there.

 

"Dean."

 

His throat feels tight, full of restraint and held back panic. If he talks he will sob, he knows it. Can feel the thick pressure behind his nose blocking him from getting enough air through his nostrils. Slowly he opens his mouth, lets a heavy breath out and tries to relax into it.

Anne isn't there to judge him. She doesn't know the things he has done and neither does she force him to tell of them. All she has asks is that he answers her questions or tell her why he can't. He already knows this answer, but letting it out there will break the barrier he keeps up between his childhood and his current self. For 30 years he has worked on it, built it back up when something has threatened to break through. Normalized his hurt. Lived with it like he hadn't ever been vulnerable.

 

"I would tell him it wasn't his fault." Dean has to look up at the ceiling, his eyes are blurring and his chest is convulsing around sobs and attempts at heavy breaths. Anne is quiet where she sits leaned back in her ugly orange chair. She barely reaches the floor when she sits like that, but her eyes are dark and trained on him with such a strength he forgets about the noises he's making for a moment.

When he re-focuses he hears them. Anne keeps quiet when she wants him to continue and it makes his own noises so much louder. It fills the room and sounds absolutely horrible echoing back and forth between the high ceiling and the sparsely decorated walls. He sounds like someone who has lost everything, someone who is crying for loss and for abuse suffered through lifetimes. It feels like it too.

 

"And it never was your fault, Dean. You deserved better than you got."

 

Dean nods. Because somewhere inside he knows he did. They all did.

 

"But what do you think your younger self would have wanted for you now? Do you think he would want to keep hurting and hating himself for something he had no control over?"

 

Dean shakes his head. Fuck, he never thought of it that way. That kid deserves better, just like every other kid they meet in their work. Children should be innocent, protected, no matter what. Even if they end up becoming him.

 

"Your guilt and shame weighs so heavy on him, Dean. They pushed things on him he shouldn't have had to handle at that age, but you keep their abuse of him going when you don't take care of yourself."

 

God, it's so fucking painful. He keeps wiping his eyes but they feel like a never ending river. His lips taste like salt from the tears he can't catch fast enough with his shirt-sleeve and ugh, there's probably snot hanging from his nose too. If anyone could see him now they would see how weak he really was behind it all.

 

"Dean, you need to start believing you are worth things. You're worthy of having the life you want just by being alive. There is no pre-requisite for happiness, no one can dictate what you have to do before you're allowed to accept yourself. Least of all you."

 

Fuck. Dean is so done. His body feels like a ton of bricks but he laughs through his sobs, because Anne's words sound so freakin good. He wants to let it go, wants the voice in his head that sounds like every person who's asked something of him that he hadn't want to give, to just shut the fuck up and let him enjoy the rest of what he has left.

Every time he comes to sit in this chair he starts out fine, in control. But by the time he leaves he is cracked right open and spilled out before this tiny little woman. And she looks at all his pieces and smiles at him, tells him there is nothing wrong with him. He's not broke or used up. He's just hidden. And every time he wants to run away before she opens the door. Afraid that this will be the time that she tells him yeah, he's fucked up beyond repair. But it never is.

 

 

She always ends their sessions with something more light-hearted though, lets him calm down, wipe his face and tell her something he looks forward to in the week until they meet again. This time he says he has work to do on Sam's ridiculous car. Wants to get all three of their cars ready for winter. There is a lot to it, changing tires, oils - She chuckles and praises him for being able to do it.

 

"I know every woman should be her own empowered person and know how to change a tire, but with these tiny legs and the arm-strength of a teenager - " Anne makes a gesture at herself "I have written it off as one of those things I'm not great at. Thankfully there is people who can do it for me. It's just how life is, you can't be great at everything. Ask me to teach you about linear equations though, then I'm your gal'"

 

It shouldn't make him feel good about himself, he shouldn't smile at such tiny words said with a joke in the tone, but he does.

The high he gets coming out of their sessions is already setting in. He feels a hundred feet tall and as if he won't take shit from anyone ever again. It only ever lasts a few days, he knows that now, but the days without self hatred are growing in numbers every week they repeat their new routine.

He thanks Anne, offers to change her tires any time she needs it and she laughs and says she'll hold him to it. It's easy to shut the door and zip his jacket back up as he heads to the waiting area just down the corridor when his legs feel like they weigh nothing and his arms want to swing him forward.

Cas has his head down, frowning at his phone. An empty paper mug of hospital-coffee next to him. Dean watches him finish whatever he's reading and lets his shadow fall across him to tell him his session is over when Cas flips the screens light off.

Cas' eyes shoot up, open and questioning, trying to make out by Dean's expression how today's meeting went. He's always attentive to what Dean might need afterwards. Sometimes there's an extra cup of coffee next to him. A sandwich if they missed breakfast on their way there. A handful of tissues when it's one of those times when the tears don't seem to stop coming.

Dean smiles and cocks his shoulder towards the stairs, a hint for them to go.

 

"Everything alright, Dean?" The former angel's voice is worried and his hand is grasping for Dean's own, not relaxing until their fingers lace together in the way they have found suits them best.

Dean lets him hold it tight, even strokes his thumb over his knuckles just because he can and he wants to. There are suddenly a lot of things he wants and they all seem possible for once.

 

"Yeah, Cas. Today was great."

 


End file.
